Teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District walked picket lines again Tuesday as administrators urged them to return to classrooms and for their union to return to the bargaining table. (Jan. 15)
AP

As the L.A. teachers’ strike continues, our national ethos rises to the fore. What relationship do we have with public education and how does that relationship describe who we are becoming?

My grandparents attended classrooms that aligned with a farming calendar. They grew up rural in a segregated society of 75 million people where an eighth-grade education was sufficient in terms of the practical applications of knowledge in a pre-tech world.

The one-size-fits-all classroom was an extension of the rural community’s culture of God, country, and respect for one’s elders. Teachers were afforded the same authority as parents and clergy.

In many respects, the pre-World War II classroom was emblematic of America. Geographically and politically, we isolated ourselves from the international discord in Europe. Similarly, our rural communities offered refuge from the conflicting values of the “outside” world, and our schools were an extension of our regional standards of behavior. Compared to the present with its omnipresent social and news media and cultural diversity, the question for many is if free public education remains the best option for our children.

Actor, musician and activist, Steven Van Zandt, center, joins in support of striking Los Angeles teachers and students on the picket in front of Hamilton High School at Hamilton High School. Los Angeles school administrators urged the union to resume bargaining as tens of thousands of teachers planned to walk picket lines for a third day Wednesday, after being joined on strike for the first time by some of their counterparts from independent charter schools.(Photo11: Richard Vogel, AP)

If we think of free public education as a microcosm of America, we should examine the pressures that urge its dissolution. Is public education being set up for failure by entities that pitch our parental love against our apprehensions about today’s world?

Consider four decades of corporate leveraging for tax revenues and data streams that stack the deck for privatization. Consider bipartisan efforts ranging from the very suspect “Nation at Risk” to No Child Left Behind and their missions to cast doubt and destroy teachers’ unions.

Rather than smaller classes and adequate supplies, we see enlarged administrative and support staffs with functionaries employed to regiment teaching professionals and collect and transmit data to external regulators. We see regulations and external standards that, in reality, inhibit the ability of teaching professionals to educate.

The growing distance between educational decision-making and the classroom is setting the American schools up for failure and, thus, enlarging opportunities to sow seeds of fear that permit corporatization to appear as a noble alternative.

As we ponder the future of free public education, we would be wise to understand that countervailing forces are not necessarily working in America’s best interests. Privatization in the guise of “choice” or “free enterprise” can be genuine, but it can also be a divide-and-conquer incentive toward monetizing everything American.

Well-financed forces are intent on harvesting the resources of our public lands, re-framing our voting rights and scything our environmental statutes. As Barbara Kingsolver’s character Tig says in “Unsheltered,” “They own the country, their god is the free market, and most people are so unhorrified they won’t even question the system. If it makes a profit, that’s the definition of good. If it grows, you have to stand back and let it. The free market has exactly the same morality as a cancer cell.”

For my money, support for L.A. teachers declares that a united America and a robust system of public education are still worth the fight. America is at a tipping point today. Make no mistake; we truly are a nation at risk, but we can still reject cynicism that declares America a quaint dream of the past.

Greg Gilbert(Photo11: Courtesy)

Greg Gilbert is a college trustee, retired English Professor, and school board member with Emeritus status at Copper Mountain College and the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges. He can be reached at writergreggilbert@gmail.com